Thornley roots around in one of the satchels, produces a hammer, and hands it to his brother.
“Be mindful of the trees. We do not know how many of Dracul’s men are out there or where they hide, but I am sure they are nearby,” Vambéry says, the Snider–Enfield rifle at the ready.
Bram edges the hammer under the lid of the crate and tugs. The nails give with a loud squeal. He works his way around until the lid comes free, then sets the hammer at his feet and eases the lid to one side. Ellen’s face is concealed beneath a thin layer of soil, her body buried deeper in the crate. He brushes the dirt from her eyes and pale cheeks, then quietly says her name.
Ellen’s eyes open with a start; red, piercing. Bram is reminded of a memory from childhood: What color would they be today?
All of them watch without a word as she sits up, the soil crumbling away from her. She turns to the sky, realizing night has not yet fallen, then reaches back and pulls the hood of her cloak over her head, shielding herself from the muted sun.
“Should we wake the others?” Bram asks, eyeing the two other crates.
“No, they must rest,” she replies. She is weak, and her entire body is trembling.
“Are you able to do this?”
She slowly takes in her surroundings, her red eyes darting over every surface. She freezes at the sight of the coach, the deceased surrounding it.
Bram tells her that it is empty, what they found.
“You were right to wake me; we haven’t much time.” She climbs out of the crate, more dirt falling away, and drops down from the wagon while Bram holds her arm, steadying her.
Ellen’s head snaps up and she sniffs at the air, her gaze on the forest. “There are many eyes upon us.”
“How many men?” Vambéry asks.
“Perhaps a dozen, maybe more.”
She studies the decaying village, her eyes fixing on a house about two hundred feet to their left. Half the roof is gone, but all four walls still stand. “Bring Deaglan there.”
Before Bram can ask why, she walks off towards the house and disappears inside.
Matilda climbs down from the wagon and trails after her while Thornley and Bram lower the trunk containing Deaglan O’Cuiv’s remains to the ground and carry the box behind her, their leather satchels piled on top.
Inside the house, Ellen clears off a table, the empty plates of a meal long forgotten. “Set it there.” She points at the floor beside the table.
Bram and Thornley do as she says, and she kneels before the box, carefully unlatching its clasps. She lifts the lid, and Deaglan O’Cuiv’s unblinking eyes stare back at them through a film of dirt.
Exhibiting the gentleness of a mother with her newborn child, Ellen begins removing her beloved’s body, one piece at a time, and placing him upon the table. She starts with his head, then his torso, then both arms and legs. Bram and the others watch all of this in silence, her eyes moist with crimson tears as the pieces she retrieved from all over the continent slowly come back together.
Bram cannot help but look at the junctures where this pitiful man was pulled apart. The ragged flesh at the shoulders and the thighs, the neck. The empty cavity in his chest where Dracul had punched through and pulled out his heart. Bram can’t imagine the pain such an atrocity would have inflicted. And knowing that this poor man still feels that pain even to this day, hundreds of years later, it is almost too much to comprehend.
Ellen leans over the man’s violated remains and kisses him gently on the lips. “Soon, my love. Soon you will be back in my arms.”
TWO HOURS UNTIL NIGHTFALL
“Someone must stay with him,” Ellen says, covering the body with the tarpaulin from the wagon. “He’s not safe with those men out there.”
“I need to find Emily,” Thornley says, already looking out the empty window at the deepening storm. “And what about Patrick and Maggie?” he asks. “They’re still on the wagon.”